Mapping the Interstellar Medium

byPaul GilsteronAugust 21, 2014

The recent news that the Stardust probe returned particles that may prove to be interstellar in origin is exciting because it would represent our first chance to study such materials. But Stardust also reminds us how little we know about the interstellar medium, the space beyond our Solar System’s heliosphere through which a true interstellar probe would one day travel. Another angle into the interstellar medium is being provided by new maps of what may prove to be large, complex molecules, maps that will help us understand their distribution in the galaxy.

The heart of the new work, reported by a team of 23 scientists in the August 15 issue of Science, is a dataset collected over ten years by the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE). Working with the light of up to 150 stars at a time, the project used the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia to collect spectroscopic information about them. The resulting maps eventually drew on data from 500,000 stars, allowing researchers to determine the distances of the complex molecules flagged by the absorption of their light in the interstellar medium.

About 400 of the spectroscopic features referred to as ‘diffuse interstellar bands’ (DIBs) — these are absorption lines that show up in the visual and near-infrared spectra of stars — have been identified. They appear to be caused by unusually large, complex molecules, but no proof has existed as to their composition, and they’ve represented an ongoing problem in astronomical spectroscopy since 1922, when they were first observed by Mary Lea Heger. Because objects with widely different radial velocities showed absorption bands that were not affected by Doppler shifting, it became clear that the absorption was not associated with the objects themselves.

That pointed to an interstellar origin for features that are much broader than the absorption lines in stellar spectra. We need to learn more about their cause because the physical conditions and chemistry between the stars are clues to how stars and galaxies formed in the first place. Says Rosemary Wyse (Johns Hopkins), one of the researchers on the project:

“There’s an old saying that ‘We are all stardust,’ since all chemical elements heavier than helium are produced in stars. But we still don’t know why stars form where they do. This study is giving us new clues about the interstellar medium out of which the stars form.”

But the paper makes clear how little we know about the origins of the diffuse interstellar bands:

Their origin and chemistry are thus unknown, a unique situation given the distinctive family of many absorption lines within a limited spectral range. Like most molecules in the ISM [interstellar medium] that have an interlaced chemistry, DIBs may play an important role in the life-cycle of the ISM species and are the last step to fully understanding the basic components of the ISM. The problem of their identity is more intriguing given the possibility that the DIB carriers are organic molecules. DIBs remain a puzzle for astronomers studying the ISM, physicists interested in molecular spectra, and chemists studying possible carriers in the laboratories.

The researchers have begun the mapping process by producing a map showing the strength of one diffuse interstellar band at 8620 Angstroms, covering the nearest 3 kiloparsecs from the Sun. Further maps assembled from the RAVE data should provide information on the distances of the material causing a wider range of DIBs, helping us understand how it is distributed in the galaxy. What stands out in the work so far is that the complex molecules assumed to be responsible for these dark bands are distributed differently from the dust particles that RAVE also maps. The paper notes two options for explaining this:

…either the DIB carriers migrate to their observed distances from the Galactic plane, or they are created at these large distances, from components of the ISM having a similar distribution. The latter is simpler to discuss, as it does not require knowledge of the chemistry of the DIB carrier or processes in which the carriers are involved. [Khoperskov and Shchekinov] showed that mechanisms responsible for dust migration to high altitudes above the Galactic plane segregate small dust particles from large ones, so the small ones form a thicker disk. This is also consistent with the observations of the extinction and reddening at high Galactic latitudes.

Working with just one DIB, we are only beginning the necessary study, but the current paper presents the techniques needed to map other diffuse bands that future surveys will assemble.

I was struck by the two strong absorption lines in the blue and red part of the diagram. As a remote sensing specialist I thought they seemed familiar.
Checking with Wikipedia entry on Diffuse Interstellar Bands the largest peaks in the blue and the red (ignoring the yellow) are at 628.4, 661.4 and 443.0 nm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_interstellar_band
Staying with Wikipedia I looked at the absorption peaks of various varieties of chlorophyll, chlorophyll having classic double peaks of absorption. Chlorophyll c1 has peaks at 442 and 630 nm, and chlorophyll c2 has peaks of 444 and 630 nm, both chlorophylls mainly found in various algae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll
While not an exact match it is fairly close, it may indicate that double absorption molecules may be a better spectroscopic match than looking for single absorption matches. Also I noticed that the DIB absorption at 443 nm is wide (1.2 nm) and so partially overlaps both chlorophyll molecules in the blue (442 and 444 nm).
To speculate further, a chlorophyll-like molecule common in space may be a template for true chlorophyll molecules, implying that if life starts elsewhere in the Milky Way, there are naturally occurring chlorophyll-like molecules in the environment that could quick-start photosynthesis at an early epoch.

@David – if chlorophyll (or some light absorbing pigment analog) is so abundant, why the delay in its use by photosynthetic organisms? An abiogenic source might be expected to be used serendipitously by very early bacteria until their biology could replicate it.

An intriguing suggestion is that a porphyrin (core structure of chlorophyll) could be used by hydrocarbon feeding bacteria.
ref: Porphyrin

I’ve always wondered how much mass is in the ISM anyway. When I google search, I keep seeing things like “99% gas and 1% dust” but that doesn’t really tell me how much matter/mass there is in all the ISM. Do we even have a ballpark guesstimate of this?

I quote the following from the Wikipedia entry on the Bussard ramjet for information about how much stuff is in interstellar space on average:

“The collected propellant can be used as reaction mass in a plasma rocket engine, ion rocket engine, or even in an antimatter-matter annihilation powered rocket engine. Interstellar space contains an average of 10−21 kg of mass per cubic meter of space, primarily in the form of non-ionized and ionized hydrogen, with smaller amounts of helium, and no significant amounts of other gases. This means that the ramjet scoop must sweep 1021 cubic meters of space (approximately the volume of the Earth) to collect one kilogram of hydrogen.”

“The collected propellant can be used as reaction mass in a plasma rocket engine, ion rocket engine, or even in an antimatter-matter annihilation powered rocket engine. Interstellar space contains an average of 10−21 kg of mass per cubic meter of space, primarily in the form of non-ionized and ionized hydrogen, with smaller amounts of helium, and no significant amounts of other gases. This means that the ramjet scoop must sweep 1021 cubic meters of space (approximately the volume of the Earth) to collect one kilogram of hydrogen.”

There’s a slight (!) problem with the pasted values above else space would collapse or we live on a tiny asteroid, maybe sharing an orbit with the little Prince’s (tee hee). I’m using ‘ ^ ‘ for ‘to the power’ so the corrected exponent values would be…

“The collected propellant can be used as reaction mass in a plasma rocket engine, ion rocket engine, or even in an antimatter-matter annihilation powered rocket engine. Interstellar space contains an average of 10^−21 kg of mass per cubic meter of space, primarily in the form of non-ionized and ionized hydrogen, with smaller amounts of helium, and no significant amounts of other gases. This means that the ramjet scoop must sweep 10^21 cubic meters of space (approximately the volume of the Earth) to collect one kilogram of hydrogen.”

As to the mass of the ISM, I’ve often heard quoted that a typical galaxy has about 85 to 90% of its normal-matter (ignoring dark matter) in the form of stars / planets etc with the remaining 10 to 15% in the form of gas and dust.
Problem is though there’s no such thing as a ‘typical’ galaxy as this paper shows … http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.3276

In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For the last eleven years, this site has coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation, and now serves as the Foundation's news forum. In the logo above, the leftmost star is Alpha Centauri, a triple system closer than any other star, and a primary target for early interstellar probes. To its right is Beta Centauri (not a part of the Alpha Centauri system), with Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Crucis, stars in the Southern Cross, visible at the far right (image: Marco Lorenzi).

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